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tv   All In With Chris Hayes  MSNBC  October 18, 2013 8:00pm-9:00pm EDT

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saturday, i'll be at north central college just outside of chicago on sunday. moving around. and that's ha"hardball" for now. "all in" starts right now. good evening. it is day two of the government working an open and day 18 of obama care open and kind of not working. it's the biggest social program in over 40 years and the fortunes democratic party an the live of tens of millions of our fellow americans rides on its success and it's been in the cross hairs. >> i will do everything necessary and anything possible to defund obama care. >> well, it turns out the republicans managed to bring everything to a halt but obama care, which launched right as
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republicans were shutting down the government. not the death panels or socialist takeover, but the real thing and it was rough. >> the health care law has a major case of the hiccups. >> it was the rollout the white house has envisioned. >> more like a sputter. >> the rollout of obama care is a huge, complicated, unprecedented undertaking and is being actively sabotaged by republican governors across the country. >> why a no go on obama care in alabama? >> i believe we need accessible and affordable health care, but not what has been proposed. >> this is going to be devastating for patients, the biggest job killer. >> what he's continuing to do is take people off of private insurance and they will now be on government insurance. >> we don't need d.c. thomas. >> we've said all along we weren't interested in putting
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more people on the titanic and that's what you would be doing with the expansion of medicaid. >> there are two ways that obama care expands coverage. one is through expanding eligibility for medicaid and right now, 26 states all with republican governors are refusing federal money for the ek pangs. "new york times" estimates 8 million americans to be living in poverty to be insured. oregon, 56,000 people have been insured by the expansion alone, reducing the uninsureded population by 10%. california has signed up 6,000 people. the other more complicated way obama care expands coverage is through health insurance exchanges and only 16 states an the district of columbia have set up their own. that means the federal government has had to build the rest from scratch. and when those federal health changes opened, they didn't function properly. >> i'm going to try and download
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every movie ever made. and you try and sign up for obama care and we'll see which happens first. what's going on with this? is this working, not working? >> well, the great news is we have a terrific market. >> almost three weeks later, we know that not only was the site overloaded with traffic, there are also huge persisting problems on the back end of healthcare.gov. >> i hope they're working to get this down and when they get it fixed, i hope they fire some people in charge of making sure this thing was supposed to work. >> meanwhile, the state run changed have faired better. in new york, 40,000 people have completed applications, but even with some functioning, the it's clear the launch has not gone according to plan. yes, republicans are working overtime to sabotage the president's health care law, but the political legacy of obama care will be determined by whether or not it works.
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right now, that is a very open question. >> tonight, nbc news is reporting the affordable care act's website will be coming down for repairs this week. the second time the site has been pulled so that fixes can be made. a white house official has also told nbc news it is not going to roll out the spanish tool on monday. joining me now to discuss the latest is the man who's been tracking this as much anyone, ezra klein, editor of "the washington post" blog and the just launched no more "washington post." ezra, how should i think about the first three weeks of obama care as someone who wants to program to work and does not want to be in a reality allergic cocoon of telling myself what i want to hear. what should i think? >> badly. it has gone badly. i've been very, i've tried to be very up front about this with
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folks because i think it's you know, i think it is a very important thing for this bill to work. i think it is a very important thing for this country so people, for this law to work for our health care system to be universal or near to ewan ver sol sal or to be able to control costs. if you believe that, you should be that much more unsparing. about the fact they have not gotten it working. >> so, there are two things to worry about. one is that you've got this traffic problem, you've just got, they did not plan for the number of people coming to the exchange and they created a bad architecture will you have to sign in before you can shop for i guess. it's starting to get better. at one point, you could go through the entire process, but the other problem and the thing that i was hearing about a couple of months ago that i was talking to the obama administration about, they were telling me it was not going to be a big problem, but it is. the information being transmitted to insurers, what
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your what insurance status will be, that information is garbled and corrupted. not every single piece, but a lot of it and that if they can't fix it, that is a much more severe problem because if you give insurers the wrong information about people and they're not wrong plan, that creates real chaos and conflict an pain when this opens on january 1st. >> one of the bits of good news has come on the nonexchange side, the medicaid expansion and what struck me as someone who might come from the single payer left. this argument about taking existing programs and expanding them. some discussion about lowering the age at which people would be eligible for medicare an it looks like that is going well. in the states that have agreed to expand medicaid, incredible
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deal. you're seeing huge numbers to sign up. in a bunch of states that did not have the changes, their working fine. california's working fine and washington state is working fine. you have a bunch of real success stories. kentucky for instance, the other thing is that i agree. single payer, a whole lot simple per. that is a clear advantage. much easier to sign people up when it's just that everybody is signed. we joke at the paper, what is the canadian health care like? it's just a big thing that says here, you have health care. everybody in canada. massachusetts has a similar structure. brought the state up to about 97 or 96% insure. i don't want to let the administration off the hook, oh,
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it's so complicated. >> we are three weeks in. there is obviously a window, but the window, there's still some more time here. i mean, the official date is until march 15th when before any kind of penalty from the mandate kicks in, right? >> and they'll probably end up extending that open enrollment date. let me say what is the issue. if you talk to health care folks, get this working by mid-november, maybe early december and you can live with it. that could be okay. the problem is you've got to get enough young and healthy people in the exchanges. so, medical record to keep premiums at a reasonable level, you need a mix of young, healthy people and older, sick er peopl. the older, sicker people, they're going to get it. if they can't get on, they're going to go through an insurance broker and keep trying. thest the young healthy folks that are always going to be the difficulty because while some
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want insurance, others, it's just not that big of a deal. kind of expensive for them. if they don't get this working in time such as they lose a bunch of those folks, pay once, twice, and maybe gave up and decided to get a mandate. year, two, you have these much higher preem ups because the insurers have all these sick people instead of healthy people. >> thank you so much. joining me now is dr. don, pediatrician appointed by president obama to head up the -- left december 2011 after 42 republican senators failed to block. he's now running if if -- and john she worked on the affordable care act. it's great to have you both here. you're the two people on the inside of this. we're on the inside that i wanted to speak to most and don, i will begin with you. you were at cms while this implementation was happening.
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why are we having trouble? did you see it coming? is it your fault? >> it's a very hard problem. the interfaces that have to be created to make the federal exchange work right are extremely complex. many agencies, states, the internal revenue service, this is a big job. i wish we didn't have the problems we face now. but in some way, i wish people would just take a deep breath here. we are in a multidecade trajectory for this country getting us to health care is a human right. we have a big technical problem here. it has to be solved. it will be solved, i'm sure. i wish we'd just get some perspective here. we're trying to help our country migrate into a whole new health care era and this will be fixed. i'm sure. >> why are you so sure? i want to lay out the panic scenario. just laid out by ezra klein. in order for these insurance pools to work, you've got to get
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young, healthy people. you pool the risk. that's why the mandate exists, right? if you have this glitchy program in which only people desperate for insurance, you have this perverse adverse selection via web glitch where you're creating risk pools that are disportiold sick. why should i not panic about that? >> there are a lot of instances, younger, healthier people would not selectively enroll. that it won't be fixed in time for them to be happy to be in it. it's better to have insurance than not and now, we're beginning going to get the opportunity to have insurance. we also have the example of states. california is a magnificent example. in massachusetts, the only state right now in which health care is really a human right, we're at about 98% enrollment and it took some hiccups to get there.
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but please look ahead a little bit. you can be doomsday if you want, but i don't feel that way at all. >> i want to come back to massachusetts. i'm curious if you feel the same way as don did, that everyone should be taking a deep breath. >> i agree. the concern is absolutely legitimate. i was not surprised by some of the hiccups we saw object 1st in the first couple of hours and days, but honestly, we have until march, correct, but if someone's been enrolling as we've seen so far, it took six to eight weeks to verify and they want to have their coverage start january 1st, we're really kind of coming down to the wire. even as the website's down, we know that the average wait time is is still under a minute for
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the phone number, so i think there's a lot we can actually do right now not to panic. and to be honest with you, i think all the negative information kind of hides over the fact that we're actually doing this. we're actually making this program work. and we're getting to the health care that never happened. >> i'm sorry, that seems like a very low bar. i've seen some numbers, i'm serious. i've seen some numbers that are really surprisingly low. i've seen numbers like 500 total people in colorado to sign up. seven total people in alaska. that is not what i think the administration or anyone was anticipating at three weeks. >> so, first, i actually think that sometimes, especially like these low numbers, i also think the same low numbers, under ten in alaska and single digits in other states. i can't tell you how much of that is from people not being able to get through like ezra had talked about when they were trying to do it and you're right. when secretary sebelius says
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they're constantly working on it and taking the website down this weekend i think reflects the fact that they're taking this very seriously. when i said the corn legitimate, if we think the bar is is low, then we have to really try, the administration and all of us in the health care profession, which is what's happening now, have to mount a concerted effort to raise those numbers and it's not going to just come from flooding the website. it has to come from a multiple kind of media modality. what happened to picking up the good old fashioned phone? the obama campaign ran on an amazing multimedia platform. we've got to bring that back in. >> don, you are someone who was the target of implaquable republican existence, absolutely no good reason. and you got to see firsthand the tangible effects of the kind of sabotage campaign of the republican party. did they have tangible effects
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in terms of implementation? >> yes, it did. let me first say there was a lot that was not affected by the republican opposition. if you look at the benefit structures that have come into place in the affordable care act are so successful you couldn't take this away. covering kids under 26. you can't take this. it wouldn't work. the public would be outraged. i think it produced several factors that inhibited success. the administrative budget is tiny compared to what the real need probably was. if i remember correctly, we had about $1 billion of resources in the bill for the first two years of implementation. that's a fraction of what should have been devoted to this really important step for america. i think the slowdown caused a b problem for america. regulations signal the public and private sector about the
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tech tall aspects of regulation. i think the political climate made it hard to move with sufficient dispatch around getting those guidelines out. i think also, frankly, the panic itself is a product of the opposition. if we were just mature enough, sat together and said, too bad it didn't go right next time. let's get it right now. mr. jones needs to be able to sign up. >> concerted national political consensus that we want people to get insurance as opposed to an effort to root for failure, that would be a different story as well. thank you both for your time. >> thank you, chris. >> coming up -- >> our speaker has been vilified after offering opportunity after opportunity to negotiate. the president on the other hand said he's not willing to negotiate with our speaker. now, the president wrote a letter to this individual who's the head of iran. he's negotiating with the head of iran. who wants to eliminate syria.
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i mean, eliminate israel. >> one of those. that was congressman steve stockman, republican from texas, talking about the shutdown. he voted to keep it shutdown, voted for default. he's got a little secret we're going to let you in on that shows what he and his party are really about. next. [ ship horn blows ] no, no, no! stop! humans. one day we're coming up with the theory of relativity, the next... not so much. but that's okay -- you're covered with great ideas like optional better car replacement from liberty mutual insurance. total your car and we give you the money to buy one a model year newer. learn about it at libertymutual.com. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy?
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i have taken a long time to prepare the following very special demonstration, so please pay close attention. this is the official miley cyrus facebook fan page. it has close to 32 million fans. next up, some unverified miley cyrus fan page called miley cyrus period. about 613,000 fans and now for the country specific site, miley cyrus venezuela, 178,000 fans. so, i bet you're wondering how the all in facebook page
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compares. we need your help. go to facebook.com, thanks for paying attention. i might just sing "wrecking ball" if you click play. demonstration only.
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just finished about house republicans who shut down the government and one of the people who didn't make it was steve stockton. the congressman who gave members of the house a book calling for president obama's impeachment. >> is that a serious threat? >> i think we have a lot of options, tools.
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i think one of the tools you have as a congressman is to impeach somebody, but i'm not saying that's the first step. but a step we need to leave open. >>linged to an obama birther bill. steve stockman, who had a staffer on a food stamp budget. reporting back it was easy and should be cut by 12%. yes, that steve stockman. it seemed too easy for our series. his twitter feed alternates with self-parody to delusional to celebrate. one of the most right wing members in all of congress and according to him, the debt is all president obama's fault. >> this president is digging a hole so deep that we can't dig out of it. the amount of money we're borrowing is predicted in four or five years, it may take all the money in the world to buy
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our bonds. it mathematically doesn't add up. >> he not only voted to shut down the government the first time, he was among the 144 republicans to vote down the shutdown and bring on default the other night and what do you find if you go to his web page? stockman introduces to act to shield agency from shutdown. that was just under the top press release titled, stockman will vote against -- a big time space enthusiast? ♪ >> hi, i'm congressman steve stockman. today, i want to talk to you about the importance of educating our youth. one of the best ways to educate our youth is to get them excited about nasa and space. >> who doesn't like nasa?
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steve stockman loves it. which employees more than 3,000 people. stockman has fought to get them money. he railed dwens the effects of sequestration and now, he's introduces the keith nasa open act to never be affected by a future government shutdown. those two headlines on his website piled atop each other tell you everything you need to know about understand about the modern republican party, modern conservatives and the tea party movement as a whole. despite what you have been told, despite what commentators entone over and over, not concerned with the debt, deficit and government spending and they aren't concerned with the size of government. what this fight is really all about is what government does. who it serves and benefits. steve stockman likes his
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government very much when it's imemploying its district. he doesn't seem to care about women and infants getting formula. just like the dam project, a multibillion dollar project and just like former congressman who switched from the democratic to republican party back in 2009, citing obama care as a major region, but who also just happened to be upset that under the obama budget, a defense contractor in his area would be losing business. when it's helping their people. so never, ever take their word when republicans and conservatives look you in the eye and tell you thai shutting county down to government or taking money from hungry people is from some abstract principle -- if you want evidence to just how baldly
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false it is, just go to their weap websites. >> join me in saving nasa and let's shoot for the moon. ♪ i'm beth... and i'm michelle. and we own the paper cottage. it's a stationery and gifts store. anything we purchase for the paper cottage goes on our ink card. so you can manage your business expenses and access them online instantly with the game changing app from ink. . . . .
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what do you think of the possibility of ray kelly being nominated to head dhs? >> if he gets nominated, he will face the fiercest opposition from the civil rights community that any person put forward by
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president obama ever has. >> talking about the possibility of ray kelly being nominated for the vacancy to run the department of homeland security. for much of the summer, we've covered that vacancy and the movement to put kelly in the job. had strong backing on both democrats and republicans. the president himself described kelly as one of the best there is. someone who had done an extraordinary job in new york. the reason we spent a lot of time on this story is simple. the thought of president obama picking ray kelly seemed unthinkable. here's what the president had to say in the wake of the trayvon martin trial. >> there are very few african-american men in this country who haven't had the ek appearance of being followed when shopping around the department store. that includes me. >> ray kelly has championed one of the biggest racial profiling operations in american history. new york's stop and frisk policy.
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overwhelmingly targets black and latinos, most of whom have done nothing wrong and was found to be unconstitutional by a federal judge. this afternoon, the president delivered welcome news. ray kelly will not be the next head of dhs. a sprawling -- spread across two government agencies. >> today, i'm proud to announce my choice. an outstanding public servant who i've known for years. >> the former general counsel at the pentagon. he has been a part of some of the most controversial decisions made in the war on terror. joining me now, morris davis. he resigned from position in 2007. he worked with jay johnson and you have been a real critic of the legal architecture that's been constructed around our
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battle with al qaeda and the interm abl war on terror and yet, i saw you praising johnson. why are you so happy he got the job? >> well, you have to start with the point you made. when ray kelly was the leading contender, compared to ray kelly, this is a mark ed improvement. i've known jay johnson, not closely, since he became general counsel of the air force in 1997. he's very bright, reasonable. he's a good leader and i think he's got all the skills that dhs really needs right now. because it's an organization that is in a lot of turmoil, moral is low. >> one of the things that i think is so interesting about this choice is the that the dhs was constructed in the wake of
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9/11 and the permanent normalization of our state of anxiety and war essentially and jay johnson is the only one besides the president talking about what the end of that post 9/11 period might look like. he said in 2012, i do believe on the present course, will come a tipping point at which so many of the leaders al qaeda had been killed on capture. talked about a world past the war on terror. you think that's significant for his occupying this position? >> i think it is very important. folks ought to go look at that speech he gave in november of 2012 where i think you get a real picture of the real johnson. i think it was encourage when he talked about this global war on terror, kind of a misnomer, it has to come to an end, that war is not a normal state, that peace should be and at some point, we transition from this
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combat model to a law enforcement model. i think those are very encouraging signs. and ones you don't hear often from obama administration officials. i think again, that's the kind of attitude you want at the dhs. >> and yet, he has been in the center of a set of decisions, asserting the legality of things like the targeted killing of american citizen, expansion of the drone program. signature strike, strikes in which we don't know the names of of the targets and we strike them any way. does that strike you as someone who's thought hard and wrestled with these issues for a long time? >> it does. he may not be the perfect choice. i didn't get a phone call. given the choices out there, i think you've got to take -- if you look on the blogosphere now, you've got folks on the far left and right that are unhappy with
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jay johnson. i think that is a good sign. you mentioned some issues where i disagree with him on, but he also led the effort. he was all for closing guantanamo. he led the effort to repeal don't ask don't tell. he pushed back when the president wanted to avoid the war powers resolution in libya. he's an independent thinker. a really good leader. independent thinker. that's what you want at dhs. >> quickly, he was an outline of those trying to close guantanamo inside the administration. you're saying that as well. >> yes. i met with him when he was part of the transition team in december of 2008 and he was on board with the president's decision to sign the order in january of 2009. i know he gets some heat about reviving the military commission, so that was after it became apparent there was going to be a will the of roadblocks. he's a good man. i'm really pleased with this choice. >> thank you so much. we'll be right back with click 3.
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after math of the government shutdown looks like it's going to be a real problem for republicans running for aus. first, i want to show you the three awesomest things on the internet today beginning with a cool new way to look at the world. this map offers some amazing details about planet. like where to find most robots, as one artist explains, most believe the world in something. in australia, canada just got slightly more exciting. while russia offered only the best in raspberries and nuclear warheads. greenland is for you probably because no one live is there and then there's the u.s., a diverse, complex nation known for its achievement, innovation. there should be no surprise then we are leader of the world in noble lauriets and getting kill
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ed by lawn moors. the national zoo has reopened its doors and a lot has happened. two lions mated while a 100-year-old tor tis went to the great sand beach in the sky. the end of all privacy for this owl. still unnamed baby panda was not too pleased about the surveillance. >> ow. ow. >> finally, an answer to one of life's burning questions. what does the panda say? it is not hotty ho. and the third opens up the best in home decorum. one of mitt romney's sons, craig romney, ready for his close up. the website offers a tour of his home and it is in a word,
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delightful. there's a family swing. books arranged by color. an enchanted bathroom. a magical tepee. one can't help but wonder if it's an effort to outdo dear old dad. for example, we find the family dog not attached to the roof of a car, but lounging on a cheerful love seat. brace yourselves, the staircase. and not just any kind of staircase, this staircase turns into a freaking slide for the romney kids to play on. can i live here? as you can see the little one slide down the staircase and land on a soft and beautiful pillow. the original plan was to have the children land in a pile of money, but that would overdo it. we'll be right back. people don't have to think about
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dad, he's gonna wreck the car! (dad) he's not gonna wreck the car. (dad) no fighting in the road, please. (dad) put your blinker on. (son) you didn't even give me a chance! (dad) ok. (mom vo) we got the new subaru because nothing could break our old one. (dad) ok. (son) what the heck? let go of my seat! (mom vo) i hope the same goes for my husband. (dad) you guys are doing a great job. seriously. (announcer) love a car that lasts. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. there are no winners here. these last few weeks have inflicted completely unnecessary damage or our economy and we know that the american people's frustration with what goes on in this town has never been higher. that's not a surprise. the american people are completely fed up with washington. >> that's true. there are no winners when it comes to the shutdown, but the
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political collateral damage that continues to ripple through the american party cannot be ignored. let's start by looking at mitch mcconnell who before the shutdown was face iing a strong challenge from his 2014 challenger. she's raised $2.5 million from july to september, slightly more than mcconnell's 2. 3 million then yesterday after the shutdo shutdown, a tea party opponent on mcconnell's right, released an ad criticizing mcconnell for helping craft a deal to reopen the government. >> for the past three years, washington has gone tr crisis to crisis. now, it seems that mitch mcconnell has run another. making deals with washington democrats like harry reid to raise the debt limit again. without even consideration for delaying obama care. >> not a very good guy. then news today that the
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senate -- the same group who accused mcconnell of cutting a deal for the shutdown, will be supporting beven next we're because mcconnell was the one who put together the compromise to reopen the government. we also appear to be seeing ramifiations. ken cuccinelli slipped eight points behind mcauliffe. for a election that is less than a month away. on top of the news out of virginia, there's the analysis out here which regularly looks at the state and house and senate races that points to 14 house races the republican incumbent lost ground in the wake of the shutdown. then there are generic ballot numbers. democrats had seen a five-point improvement than just the shutdown. besides what's happening in virginia where they'll elect a new governor of november 5th. but it is harder and harder on
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this latest episode hasn't just hurt the republican brand. it's created tangible -- joining me now, associate professor of political science at columbia university and politics editor at business insider. start in virginia because the 2009 virginia gubernatorial election was kind of a be bellwether in certain ways. it was a year out from virginia going blue for obama in 2008, which was a huge deal and people could not believe that obama had pulled this off and it was the first cresting wave indication of the tea party wave that was to come with bob mcdonald's victory there and now, we see a very, very different electorate with a different candidate who is not that strong and i think there is something to be said about virginia as bellwether and i think it says something about where the republican party is right now that cuccinelli's having such a hard time.
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>> it's hard to understand how bad a democratic candidate terry mcauliffe is. he's still going to win easily because republicans managed to do worse. he was in bad shape before the shutdown happened. his social conservatism is hard edge. but really, it's the shutdown of the last month that has soured. >> and it's been the thing -- >> the shutdown is not abstract. so many government workers there, so many companies there that depend on government contracts. it wasn't a joke and it wasn't just about monuments. so, that's why it was not just a a matter of principle or again, obama and obama care. it is about hour jobs. >> i want to talk about the kinds of candidates that republicans are going to put up. that's the other big missing factor. steve lonegan and krchris chrise and how the divide between those
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we're back. we're talk about the electoral ramifications of the flop, the government shutdown and here's the following race in virginia. before the shutdown, mcauliffe had a five-point lead, now, an eight-point lead. you were make iing the point ma he isn't such a bellwether. >> it's a state that's overly relying on government employees and contracts, so those voters are going to act differently than voters in ohio. but i think it's significant they're starting to move to the left on social issues, economic issues. the question, is, will he stay
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there. all of a sudden, the party is becoming more liberal at the same time. >> the civil war part is interesting because that civil war, which has manifest itself in big primary campaigns in 2012, in some ways with the single most important thing about who will control the senate. about who comes out of republican primaries. to compare how steve lonegan did and how chris christie is doing. lonegan is your classic tea party burn it all down, campaign with sarah palin, then he lost. chris christie is pull like 0 points ahead. i don't like chris christie. i found him unappealing, maybe i'm not minority on that, but all that said, you have a choice republican you can nominate steve lonegan. >> it's an even stronger case
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than you have, but the thing that christie does, when it's popular in new jersey to be a conservative, he's a conservative. and when it's not, he's pragmatic. he went and worked with the president and was photographed with him. christie's polling about a third of the black vote in new jersey. pulling ahead among nonwhite voters. these are numbers that are just totally unheard of. i wrote a piece and spoke with an african-american mayor in philadelphia and he thinks that black voters in new jersey voting for chris christie treated the president with respect. >> feels like a really low bar. >> it does feel like a low bar. baef his finger in the president's face. it's a formula that works. can chris christie sell that to other republicans. >> and the question is all of
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the republican primary voters bought him that. republican primary voters have cost mitch mcconnell in two successive elections. christine o'donnell, sharon engel, richard murdoch, there are about five or six senate races, winnable senate races that republican primary vote voters -- >> with chris christie, he had a good week. also today, the new jersey supreme court ruled that gay marriage in new jersey starts on monday. he previously v lly vetoed a bi. it might have been overridden, but that's off the table. he's off the record with republican primary voters as being against gay marriage, but he has a state in which the fight is over. he doesn't have to antagonize moderates by being the standard bearer against gay marriage. >> the republican party is
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really two parties. the civil war started when romney lost. >> really, it really started when he -- true. but it really started when he lost, so christie again is an anomaly. still kind of a northern republican. the tea party base is in the south and i've been trying to think of an example, it's really the dixiecrats from 1948. they left that party and tried to start their own. the tea party is is not going anywhere. they have proven to be effective within the republican party, so i think we're going to see this play out for the next generation. >> freedom works essentially threatened a break, like a formal break. gop is going to go the way of the whig party. >> i don't think that can happen. the question is is how much pain do republicans have to go through before they realize there's a problem. >> a lot. stop for a second because the primary voters who will determine these outcomes have
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not changed. >> they like ted cruz, some of them, the tea party supporters like ted cruz more. >> his approval has gone up. the real question is is the tea party coherent enough. it doesn't feel like there's a civil war in the sense there are two really cohesive parties. it feels like beirut. just a lot f republicans. it's just not -- >> tribal warfare grinding israel. >> it's not even clear all the time there is -- it's hard to sort out what the differences are idea logically, politically. sometimes, they seem to really, really not like each other or really want something that another one has. >> i think there's also this thing, they're still holding the house of representatives. the map is favorable to them.
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it's not an insurmountable amount, but if that happens, it's the thing that will get through to republicans. >> there are protected, but 17 or 18 members of boehner's caucus that are in districts that obama won in 2012. that's a very small nurl. >> and a lot of them i believe were among the 87 who voted for -- >> yes, absolutely. which is the important part about christie having a good week, the most successful politicians are all governors. they have nothing to do with washington and it is really difficult for a party to form its national party based on controlling the house. democrats learned that the hard way in the 1980s and it hurt the democrats for a long time and that is a lesson republicans are learning right now.

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